California Sec. of State Debra Bowen wants Los Angeles County's acting Registrar of Voters, Dean Logan, to check the poll rosters of thousands of precincts in order to help accurately count tens of thousands of currently uncounted ballots cast in the Super Tuesday Democratic Primary.

As The BRAD BLOG pointed out last week, tens of thousands of currently uncounted ballots cast by Non-Partisan voters who chose to cross over and vote in the Democratic Primary, but who failed to ink in a second bubble meant to instruct voting machines to count the ballots as Democratic votes, can be counted accurately, as per the voters' intent, if Logan bothers to check those poll rosters.

It's not, and Bowen clearly seems to understand that, as evidenced by both her letter to Logan and comments she made last Friday on Northern California National Public Radio affiliate KQED, where she said she was "shocked" to hear that the debacle had happened in several elections previously...

Bowen said Friday that she was "shocked" to hear that L.A. County's "Double Bubble" ballot had been used before, and, as we confirmed in an earlier report today, which showed that the county's former Registrar of Voters, Conny McCormack, who designed the ballot, failed to do anything to correct the problem, despite uncounted Non-Partisan ballots rates of some 40% in previous elections.

"No one could have predicted this," McCormack told the LA Times today, in her best imitation of Condoleeza Rice, despite the fact that the problem was perfectly predictable. The paper also indicated today that officials at the Registrar's office knew of the problem months ago, well before McCormack abruptly vacated her post, just over a month before Election Day.

"I certainly wasn't aware of this," the Secretary commented on KQED's Forum program last week. "The ballot design is done down at the county level," she said, adding "I was shocked to hear it, frankly."

She concurred with us, however, that most of the county's thousands of currently uncounted ballots can be counted, and counted accurately.

"A visual inspection of these ballots, alone, will not tell us which primary and which candidate the voter intended to cast a ballot in," Bowen correctly pointed out on Northern California's National Public Radio affiliate station on Friday. We had made the same point earlier in the week, while explaining that the dearly departed McCormack's insane ballot design specified use of the same line of bubbles for recording votes in both the Democratic and American Independent Party Primaries on Non-Partisan (NP) ballots given to voters who were registered as Decline-to-State (DTS).

An examination of the precinct poll rosters, however, will likely offer the information needed to count virtually every ballot 100% accurately to the voter's intent. Bowen concurs.

"I've asked Los Angeles County to do a precinct-by-precinct reconciliation of the roster that is used when voters sign in," Bowen told KQED, following up with an example of how the procedure might work once the poll rosters are examined. Poll workers had been directed to cross out NP and write-in either DEM or AI next to the voters' names when they asked to vote in one of the open primaries.

"Let's say that there are five Decline-to-State voters in a particular precinct, and they all asked for Democratic Party ballots" Bowen explained, "This would not be surprising. I don't think we had a lot of people requesting American Independent Party ballots. If that happens, and in that same precinct you find the five Decline-to-State voters did not fill in the bubble [specifying which party's primary the ballot should be counted in], it is then safe to assume that they all intended to vote in the Democratic Primary because you didn't have anyone request an American Independent Party ballot in that precinct."

But what of those precincts where there were Non-Partisan voters who chose to cross over and vote in the AI Primary? Though Bowen agrees with us, that the number of such ballots is likely incredibly small, she also points out an important provision of the California Election Code in her letter to Logan.

She writes that "Elections Code section 15154(c) does not permit the acceptance of a ballot in which the choice of the voter is impossible to determine," before quoting, as Logan did in his report to the County Supervisors, from the sub-section of that provision:

If for any reason the choice of the voter is impossible to determine, the vote for that office shall not be counted

In almost every case, however, if the poll books are examined, it will not be impossible to determine the choice of the voter.

Last week we pointed out several options which are available for counting the vast majority of the currently uncounted ballots accurately. In the case of precincts where there are no NP-AI voters specified in the poll roster, all NP ballots without a Dem or AI bubble filled in, but with a Presidential choice on them, can safely be presumed to be votes in the Democratic Primary, as Bowen confirmed. They can, and should, be counted immediately.

Where there may be one NP-AI voter or more recorded having voted at the precinct, but fewer correctly-bubbled NP-AI ballots, we had offered two different options last week which would have counted almost every single ballot accurately, while vastly reducing the current miscount rate (all of the currently uncounted votes have been miscounted as "undervotes," as of now, even though they were not undervotes) to almost 0%.

The first option was to simply count all such ballots as Democratic Primary votes, given the low number of NP-AI crossover voters over all. Though there would be a small error-rate with such a method, the electronic machines used to count ballots in L.A. County and elsewhere, routinely have an "acceptable" error-rate that is already as high or higher. The other option was to count them all as Democratic ballots, but then reduce each candidate's tally by a mathematically statistical proportion based on the number of NP-AI cross-over voters at the particular precinct.

However, given the law quoted by both Logan and Bowen, pointing out that "if for any reason the choice of the voter is impossible to determine, the vote for that office shall not be counted," we'll give the benefit of the doubt, and point you instead to a far simpler, and fail-proof suggestion sent to us by a BRAD BLOG reader just after we'd posted our article last week.

Her suggestion assures that every vote counted will be known to have been 100% accurately counted, beyond a shadow of any legitimate doubt:

You may have thought of this, but to count the votes in precincts where there are AI crossovers, you simply take the count for the democratic candidates and reduce EACH candidate's vote count by the number of AI voters. That will ensure that no AI vote goes to a Democrat.

Sure enough, though that plan would lead to a minuscule handful of potentially uncounted Democratic votes, the plan would otherwise work, and should be instituted, without delay, by acting Registrar Logan. Particularly as the deadline for final certification of results at the county level is quickly arriving. Results must be certified locally, and then sent to the SoS within 28 days of the election held on February 5th.

One last point worth reiterating, with all of the above in mind...

Article II of California's state constitution has a new provision added overwhelmingly by the voters via Proposition 43, on March 5, 2002, in response to the Presidential Election debacle in Florida.

The line added to the constitution by voters states clearly: "A voter who casts a vote in an election in accordance with the laws of this State shall have that vote counted."

No "laws of this state" were violated when voters failed to fill in the "Double Bubble" on those Non-Partisan ballots, as per the confusing and ridiculous scheme (not a law, or part of the state Election Code) courtesy of the Los Angeles County Registrar.

Furthermore, California's Election Code, Section 19001, states that all code requirements "shall be liberally construed so that the real will of the electors will not be defeated by any informality or failure to comply with all of the provisions of the law."

So Mr. Logan, enough excuses. It's time to count the damned votes. All 100,000 of them, if that's what needs to be done to ensure the voices of Los Angeles County voters are heard.

What say we put the voters first for a change?

Please support The BRAD BLOG's Fund Drive and our continuing coverage of your election system, as found nowhere else. Click here for a number of cool new collector's edition Premium products now available for new contributors!

Ms Bowen is doing exactly what we voted her into the office of SoS to do. She is setting an example for the other states' SoS's and putting a lot of them to shame. I wish that all public officals had her integrity. You go, Debra!!!

I'm a little confused here. Why can they not just register the vote for whatever candidate is indicated? If a voter filled in the bubble for Obama, they obviously intended to vote for him. If they filled in the bubble for Hillary, it's vice versa.

Yeah, you are missing something. There are no names on the ballots. Only numbered bubbles. See the graphic in the story showing how InkaVote works here in LA County. See some of my earlier stories for more details on how the system works (or, in this case, doesn't).

Maybe California could make an addition to election law that would make it illegal to assign the same ballot position (Or number in this case) to candidates from different parties? At the very least, with a system like the InkaVote, where candidates names do not appear on the ballot?

Hate to add to laws but when something like this can happen and obviously you cannot depend on some election officials to do the right thing, then the right thing has to be legislated.

Bajasteve: The answer is above, "McCormack's insane ballot design specified use of the same line of bubbles for recording votes in both the Democratic and American Independent Party Primaries on Non-Partisan (NP) ballots given to voters who were registered as Decline-to-State (DTS)."

In other words, as I understand it, the Obama and Clinton bubbles may have also matched AI candidates. (But not necessarily, given that apparently the Dem ballot had eight candidates and the AI ballot only had three.)

Hmm, the Inkavote-style ballot really seems like a problem, much more hackable than a system where the candidate names appear on the ballot itself, especially if the order of candidates is randomized in each precinct. I'm not convinced that this type of paper ballot is any more reliable (say, for a recount) than a tape printed by a DRE machine, because there is no way to be completely certain that the candidate names were presented to the voter in the correct order. Thoughts?

Yeah, I agree with that Dolphyn #8, especially in light of this seemingly intentionally unresovled but obviously aware of ballot design problem. Eternal vigillance is necessary against these steal-the-vote-anyway-they-can election officials!
Debra Bowen your my favorite elected official in the entire country!

I'd like to see laws that codify some rules of ballot design (don't do x, y and z; follow these principles), and a required "blind audit" of the ballot design (audit the design with false names/parties). Further, how about a law that requires that a neutral body test drive (what a concept) the ballots (not approving or reviewing them, but a representative group of citizens actually using them and providing feedback) before the design is used, and monitoring election results for anomalous undervotes or other clues to the success/failure of the design. What about having a ballot design professional in the SOS office or available on a consulting basis?

It should be entirely possible to include ballot design in what is planned, public, and transparent about election administration. Real people with real names make ballot designs and get them approved. Let's get this process into the light of day and into the 21st century in terms of professionalism. It is not acceptable for a county as large and influential as LA County to appear be practicing ballot design as a black art.

"I'd like to see laws that codify some rules of ballot design (don't do x, y and z; follow these principles), and a required "blind audit" of the ballot design (audit the design with false names/parties)."

There should really be a separation between the ballot (that is, the record of the vote) and the marking machinery (the interface used to create a ballot).

Then it's straightforward to require that ballots be readable without any special equipment or election specific information, and that each ballot must at minimum list all of the issues the voter could have voted on, the voter's choice for each, and the date of the election. (Machine friendly formatting such bubbles or bar codes would be optional under such a regime.)

With the InkaVote ballot, you could have a block, say, numbers 10 through 20 if there are 10 candidates in a race or in that party in that primary. You then can rotate as necessary within that block of numbers.

You could even leave a few blanks between races or the political parties in a primary on that type of ballot.

The key is, that that block will have votes for candidates in the Democratic or Republican or American Independent primary.

It would even facilitate a recount because you know where that race should appear on the ballot, although I think in any recount, everything on the ballot should be checked for accuracy while you're at it.

It should have been obvious to do this in LA County.

To not do so, consistently, is either woefully incompetent, or begins to look intentional.

I'm not convinced that this type of paper ballot is any more reliable (say, for a recount) than a tape printed by a DRE machine

I'll grant your general point, though quibble only in a small way. There is hope, at least, that a proper forensic analysis can be made of the InkaVote paper ballots used in LA County (one example is what we're seeing now with this "Double Bubble" debacle), which can NEVER be made with confidence with a DRE w/ "paper trail".

So while the ultimate difference may be marginal, in truth, it's rather huge as I see it.

That said, the InkaVote system is obviously ridiculous and LA County should use a ballot with the NAME of candidates on it.

I see. We're old-fashioned up here in the Central Valley. Our ballots actually have names on the same sheet that we mark. Radical concept, eh?

That LA County ballot reminds me of when I was overseas and requested a mail ballot from Nevada. They sent me a punch card and needle to punch out my votes, but no ballot listing candidates and issues to vote on.

I work as an election official when we have elections here, and we have the best system I've ever used. You mark a paper ballot with an ink pen. Then, the ballot is fed into a scanner that records the votes. The paper ballot drops into a bin, and is collected at the end of the day. All paper ballots are sealed in a box and sent to the registrar of voters, so that they're available if a recount in necessary. It's so simple.

There's even a device called the Automark for disabled voters. You select your choices on a screen, push a button, and it marks a paper ballot for you. Then you can check the ballot to make sure everything's correct, and scan it in.

1. Are the physical ballots counted (number of ballots, not actual votes)/reconciled on election night? (total received vs. total cast plus total spoiled and compared to total votes cast)?

2. Do the test decks for your machines include curve balls such as supposedly unreadable ink types and blank ballots? Do your machines read specific colors of ink? How are voters kept apprised of this info?

3. Does your state have a statute requiring regular program of auditing paper ballots? How many of the paper ballots cast are actually counted in any election?

4. Does your state mandate or provide procedures to assure the controlled storage and complete chain of custody on the paper ballots, much the same as one would expect Fort Knox to have for gold or a police lab to have for evidence?

5. If your voting starts early in the am, are machines set up the night before the election in the polling place?

#14 If I had to choose between a stoner and an angry rigid...would have to go with stoner. Hard times for thinkers. The Greeks used to pay people to think. We don't even have to pay Willie. Look what he has single handedly done for biofuels.Off topic ..sorry

Hey Molly, my kid wants to go to a college that doesn't teach you what to think, but teaches you how to think...they teach "the great works" of philosphy, pretty proud of her! And yeah, I've contacted DN about voting integrity issues.